Love was never a heartbeat. It was the echo left behind after the heart forgot why it was still beating. It arrived wearing another person's face, its hands stitched together from promises that had already begun to rot. I welcomed it. Not because it was kind, but because loneliness knows how to mistake a wolf for warmth. Every smile it offered cast a longer shadow. Every whispered "forever" fed another ghost sleeping beneath my ribs. The thought of love is a clever liar. It builds cathedrals from broken mirrors, then asks us to kneel before our own reflections, calling the illusion destiny. How eagerly we obey. We water flowers that grow from graves, write poems to people who never truly existed, and embrace memories still unborn. Love watches. Silent. Patient. Like a spider waiting in the center of a web woven from hope. It never forces us inside. It simply lets us believe the silver threads are rays of morning light. By the time we understand, the sky has forgotten our ...
He sits at the table, familiar face,
but his thoughts are miles away.
His body fills the rooms of home,
his heart has rented another place.
A single choice, carelessly made,
split love into before and after.
Since the betrayal, nothing fits
not the vows, not the laughter.
He wears the mask of a perfect husband,
out of guilt, not devotion.
Kind words rehearsed, smiles practiced,
affection emptied of emotion.
His wife feels the distance in small ways:
the silence between simple talks,
the way his eyes drift elsewhere,
the absence in his presence.
The home once built on warmth and trust
now stands cracked but standing still.
He broke it quietly, with desire,
and guilt became his daily will.
He stays, yet he has already gone
a man divided by his own deceit,
living proof that one bad decision
can turn love into memory.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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